Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

collardio, have you checked the interviews?

I listened to the Katie Halper one, not the Krystal Ball.

But I'll check that one out too.

I'll treat this Biden stuff as more serious when I see some reporting on it from an actual outlet I trust (WaPo, the Hill, the Chronicle, the LA Times, etc.)

I posted the video upthread, but I think that's already 50+ messages ago.

cool thread

I haven't seen anyone as invested as Fred in completely discounting a sexual assault accusation since September 2018.

the Hill huh

@milo: That says more about how little you must care about these stories, tbh

I want "memory that struggles to be accessed through a fog of shame, fear, and just garden-variety human forgetfulness." and "I studied History in college" as poll options

I'm still looking forward to voting for Bernie in the Oregon primary in May. If I live so long. November is an eternity from now.

tbf you’re not saying “no” that quietly; you’re saying it with an overwrought wall of text.

Were you skeptical of @theintercept and @ryangrim when they broke the story about Kavanaugh sexually assaulting Christine Blasey Ford? Did you raise your reservations about them then? https://t.co/U7OxtbMY6j

— Katie Halper (@kthalps) March 27, 2020

Anyone refusing to acknowledge this by downplaying the veracity of a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter who broke the Kavanaugh story AND the Rob Porter allegations just because he didn't do it on your favorite corporate owned media conglomerate's subscription-paywalled publication is a clown. One who probably never gave the slightest damn about actually believing women who risk their livelihood, privacy, and sanity to come forward with allegations and stories like this at all.

TheIntercept broke all journalistic rules with the Kavanaugh story as well, though. Bringing an accusation without the accuser being on board is an incredibly shitty look.

i think this is going to stick to biden, honestly. people of my generation and younger, especially younger, already hate him. and the thing they hate most is white male entitlement.

whether or not this is true. i have no idea. he has issues with personal space and boundaries that show he has a condescending and paternalistic attitude toward women. that is clear. but before it wasn't totally clear if this was a sexual thing. if this becomes more substantiated it will put decades of behavior that is ALREADY BAD in a much, much worse light.

your favorite corporate owned media conglomerate's subscription-paywalled publication

yeah, it's so shitty to expect people to pay for good journalism.

the intercept ran a story about time's up's response to biden's accuser, not a story about the accusation itself. but apparently some ppl think it's disrespectful to even bother to try to vet these stories as opposed to just running with them, i guess.

i think this is going to stick to biden, honestly. people of my generation and younger, especially younger, already hate him. and the thing they hate most is white male entitlement.

― treeship., Friday, March 27, 2020 2:09 PM

That's true, seen most often on ILE political threads that are not this one.

i think it is absolutely insane that this is the person we ended up with. the guy who says he has "no sympathy" for millennials. the guy who sniffs women's hair. in 2020 it's insanity.

I agree with that.

But I just have to comment on this:

whether or not this is true. i have no idea. he has issues with personal space and boundaries that show he has a condescending and paternalistic attitude toward women. that is clear. but before it wasn't totally clear if this was a sexual thing. if this becomes more substantiated it will put decades of behavior that is ALREADY BAD in a much, much worse light.

That when Tara Reade told that other story about a year ago, she explicitly wrote, more than once, that her story wasn't about something 'sexual'.

yeah, i mean, i think he thinks of women as children, basically.

which is really bad and gross in its own right. but before this, i didn't tag him as a predator. just like, a drunken shopping mall santa clause from 1964.

Again, treeship, Tara Reade, the woman who now tells the story about Biden being a predator, said a year ago that he wasn't a predator. That is one of the reasons I doubt she is telling the truth now.

there is just no way to know. she could be an inconsistent person who lies sometimes but then this time is telling the truth.

or she could simply... oh never mind...

fred did u take the same attitude toward women who followed that pattern re Cosby and Weinstein?

Absolutely, yes.

Although each and every accuser there was much more believable than this one.

And those journalists did an incredibly job getting those stories beyond 'there is just no way to know'. That's what journalists should do.

The overwhelming number of accusations in regard to Cosby and Weinstein contributed greatly to the overwhelming credibility of the picture the accusers painted. At this point, the mass of stories about Biden agree in describing his thoughtless invasion of women's personal space, but not outright criminality. If further accusations arise, that general profile of his conduct would need to be re-evaluated.

i think we can all just agree that we hope biden picks warren as his running mate and then dies immediately after the election.

i think this is going to stick to biden, honestly. people of my generation and younger, especially younger, already hate him. and the thing they hate most is white male entitlement.

Is that damage already baked in though, do these allegations really make all that much difference?

They already know they have a candidate that may not be up to scratch, the question is what, if anything, they do about it. Presumably nothing can happen until after he wins the nomination

There were a lot more to it as well, at least wrt Weinstein. Settlements, people who had worked at Miramax backing the stories up. The original stories by Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey and Ronan Farrow are incredible journalism.

Continue to be baffled by anyone that seriously puts forward the argument that every accuser must be believed by default, and that to do otherwise is a miscarriage of justice borne of sexism and misogyny. The fact that some people on the left vociferously take this position is a failing that the right is eager to exploit. Every case should be evaluated on its merits and within its specific context. And it should be taken as a given that the court of public opinion will be messy and imperfect and rife with misinformation, distortions, and bad faith arguments, even moreso than the legal arena.

that being said I have no opinion of this specific case because, as I said, I haven't seen anything about it (and no I'm not scrolling up to watch some bs tv news crap)

(My own position on this is I don't feel qualified to have an opinion on it and I'm aiming to steer clear of making pronouncements either way)

Although each and every accuser there was much more believable than this one.

Reade filed a contemporaneous complaint and had eyewitnesses at the time of the alleged incident and spoke with US Senate officials, went to her local media, the Time's Up nonprofit, and the National Women's Law Center. What more do you want someone coming forward with allegations like this to do or provide as evidence exactly? How many of Weinstein and Cosby's accusers provided half as much information or went to half as many outlets and avenues to get their story out? Like an out of court settlement is the ultimate influencing factor between you deciding a woman making these allegations is a paid Russian influence reading a script or someone unquestionably telling the truth? You know some people are in positions of power high enough that they don't ever need to go to court to make incidents and people making allegations like this against them go away in the first place right?

who is this new poster

just curious

i think it's pretty clear that someone who's told at least three distinct versions of a single story is not "unquestionably telling the truth."

reade published this in january. you can decide for yourself whether it helps her credibility:

https://medium.com/@AlexandraTaraReade/the-politics-of-standing-in-your-truth-is-joe-biden-the-blue-trump-b70468082841

*Have my pulse checked every 20 minutes
*Challenge staff to feats of strength
*Nuzzle the necks of female staff
*Watch video of me from previous day, so I remember who I am
*Tell long stories about my youth to no one in particular
*Make American lives even more miserable pic.twitter.com/74RIPpyByO

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) March 27, 2020

Yeah, that version from January fits with neither the old story or the new one.

truly inspiring

If I were President, here's what I would do right now:

- Use all available authorities to turn the tide on this epidemic
- Launch a task force to ensure money rapidly gets to people who need it
- Bring leaders of Congress together to build the next deal https://t.co/F14kf8MRUF

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) March 26, 2020

he forgot the Blue Ribbon Commission

Top men working on it.

brilliant plan

...those are all things that trump can also say he is doing

i don't blame biden at this point. he is very old and he probably wishes he could just kick his feet up.

i blame his team. his team sucks.

also, he sucks